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Procedia Engineering 125 (2015) 32 – 39

The 5th International Conference of Euro Asia Civil Engineering Forum (EACEF-5)

The practice of time management on construction project

Lok Siew China and Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamida,*
a
Department of Structures and Materials, University Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia

Abstract

The Malaysian construction industry plays a vital role in the country development. CIOB in 2008 [1] has indicated that the quality
of time-management on construction projects is generally poor. Therefore, an effective time management for the construction
project is important in managing risk of the delayed completion project. The aim of this project is to examine the practice of time
management on construction project. The objectives of this study are to assess the respondents’ participation in the planning of
construction works, to investigate how progress records are kept and to identify the process of monitoring the progress of work on
the construction industry. To achieve these objectives, there were thirty questionnaire sets distributed to the respondents. From the
findings, the project manager has the highest percentage in both drafting a planning method statement and project planning
meetings. Most of the respondents had their experience of the sequence was planned as a result of a discussion and written method
statement, the activity durations being calculated in whole or in part, the price was allocated in separate documents with
contingency, date constraints were used constraint the performance to the dates given in the contract documents and float constraints
were used to control critically. As for the progress reports, the majority prefer to keep the records on the paper but were immediately
input into the database. Most of them had the experience of additional work related to labour allocation. When it came to relating
the resource used to the work done and in which location, it was the experience of majority respondents identified task on schedule
for both labour and plant and equipment records. The respondents preferred to report the progress in meeting or correspondence
and the schedules were updated monthly. Lastly, most of them have corrected the logic to conform to progress achieved to deal
with consequences of out of sequence work.
© 2015
© 2015TheTheAuthors.
Authors. Published
Published by by Elsevier
Elsevier Ltd.Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of organizing committee of The 5th International Conference of Euro Asia Civil Engineering
Peer-review under responsibility of organizing committee of The 5th International Conference of Euro Asia Civil Engineering
Forum (EACEF-5).
Forum (EACEF-5)
Keywords: time management; planning; progress records; monitoring; delay

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +60-13-7531947; fax: +60-7-5566157

E-mail address: rahimhamid@utm.my

1877-7058 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of organizing committee of The 5th International Conference of Euro Asia Civil Engineering Forum (EACEF-5)
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2015.11.006
 Lok Siew Chin and Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid / Procedia Engineering 125 (2015) 32 – 39 33

1. Introduction

Construction industry only contributed only around 3 percent to the Gross Domestic Product in the year 2010 but
however it makes up an important part of the Malaysian economy due to the involvement with other industry branches
such as the metals processing industry and the mechanical engineering or the tourism sector. Therefore, the
construction industry is a substantial economic driver for Malaysia (ANK Malaysia, 2012) [2]. But however,
construction has been facing numerous issues and one of them is time management issues which have cause delayed
completion of a project [3, 4]. According to Westland [5], time management is the process of recording and controlling
time spent by staff on the project. The issues are poor management of time, choice of procurement methods,
participation of shareholders, poor planning of construction works, lack of implementation of software, poor site
records and etc. Thus these issues can lead to delays are insidious often resulting in time overrun, cost overrun,
disputes, litigation, and complete abandonment of projects [5]. Hence, this paper will look into the issues mentioned
to minimize and avoid delay in any construction project. A research conducted by the Chartered Industry of Building
(CIOB) [1] in 2008 has indicated that the quality of time-management on construction projects is generally poor. The
research also indicates that the growth in training, education and skill levels within the industry in the use of time-
management techniques has not kept pace with the technology available. In addition, there are also very few projects
are currently managed by reference to modern methods of time control. Ahmed et al. [6] found that delay happen in
every construction project and the magnitude of these delays varies considerably from project to project. Some projects
are only a few days behind schedule and some are delayed by over a year. Also, conflicts in shareholders are one of
the factors of unsuccessful projects. El-Razek et al [7] identified that different parties of construction in Egyptian
construction projects do not agree with each other on the importance of various factors of delay, and they mostly
blaming each other of delays. He too finds that team effort is vital in the success of a project. Liberatore et al [8] has
mentioned that high percentage of the construction respondents used project management software for general work
planning or presentation. Thus this has shown the importance of use of project management software in construction
works. Also, Scott and Assadi in [9] has stated that majority of respondents did not keep records of progress that show
each of the work activities on the contractor’s programme, exactly when work took place. The problems were lack of
an organized and formalized approach, lack of clear rules and guidelines on how the records are kept and organized,
difficulties in ensuring the consistency of reporting by various responsible individuals, inexperience staffs and etc [9].
Therefore, the importance of project control techniques in managing time to improve the risk of delayed project are
needed to be known and recognize so that the risk of project delayed can be minimized.
The aim of this study is to examine the practice of time management on construction project and the objectives of
this study are to assess the respondents’ participation in the planning of construction works; to investigate how progress
records are kept on construction industry and to identify the process of monitoring the progress of work on construction
industry.
Successful project management insures the completion of project in time, within budget, and to the project
specifications. Therefore, this study is significant to investigate on how time is managed on construction industry. So
that the managerial staffs can get a clear understanding on time management and they are able to prevent them early.
Shareholders need to know their roles and their responsibilities. Construction works need to have a good and detail
progress records to deal with future claims. This study is to let the managerial staff to know the importance of
monitoring the progress of work on construction industry. Lastly, this study can become a guideline for future
development in other possible areas.

2. Literature Review

A project is a collection of activities to achieve a specific objective. Project management involves project planning,
monitoring, and control. In project planning, it includes definition of work specification, determination of quantity of
work, and estimation of resources required [10]. In project management, time management together with cost
management is the most visible area. The initial objectives of time management are to control time and prepare
schedules, networks and so on [11]. Mackenzie [13] tells a wider definition for time management: “Time Management
is the function required to maintain appropriate allocation of time to the overall conduct of the project through the
successive stages of its natural life-cycle, (i.e. concept, development, execution, and finishing) by means of the
34 Lok Siew Chin and Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid / Procedia Engineering 125 (2015) 32 – 39

processes of time planning, time estimating, time scheduling, and schedule control.” Project time management needs
the use of tools and policies in order to create a standard for monitoring and measuring project work. Both the
individual and assigned tasks must be able to capture and manage time by utilizing the tools in this process [14].
Effective time management is vitally important for construction project. CIOB [1] has discussed three ways to
indicate how project was being managed which are procurement methods, time management methods and principle
tools for time management. CIOB [1] has identifies eight types of procurement methods which are bespoke contract,
partnering, lump sum, design and build, target cost, re-measure and construction management. In Malaysia, type of
procurement systems that commonly used in Malaysia nowadays are traditional system, design and build method,
management contracting method and professional construction management method [15]. Maizon [16] states that the
inappropriateness of the procurement systems that have been chosen for the construction projects is recognized as one
of the principal reasons for the construction industry’s poor performance. As for the principal tools, a research
conducted by CIOB [1] has listed out 8 types of tools for time management: (1)A bar-chart, (2) Partially linked
network, (3) Fully linked network, (4) Time chainage diagram, (5) Line of balance diagram, (6) Flow chart, (7)
Minutes of meetings, (8) Correspondence. The result shows that respondents were familiar with the use of a simple
bar chart as a time-management tool while some were familiar with using other methods of communicating their
intended progress, without reference to a schedule of any sort.
A stakeholder can be defined as anybody who has an interest in the project, its work, outputs, outcomes or ultimate
goals. Therefore, different shareholders have different perspectives on the success criteria of a project [17]. Lo et al.
[18] has identified 30 causes of delay in Hong Kong construction projects which some of the 7 categories are related
to shareholders. The 7 categories are client related, engineer related, contractor related, human behavior related,
project related, external factors and resource related. Commitment from all parties involved is important for any
project to complete successfully [19].
Site records have a range of information relating to finance, quality and progress. As for the progress records, they
include particulars showing what happened, when it happened, the resources used and any disruption or delay. These
records are maintained with purposes such as providing a means of monitoring and controlling the construction
process. Thus they have vital roles in resolving construction conflicts and disputes [9]. One of the most important
tasks of construction project management is project progress monitoring and control. Every team member know the
project progressing, where they are currently in comparison to the initially set plans, whether deadlines are met,
budgets are safely measured and followed [20].

3. Methodology

In order to achieve the first objective, a review of the literature is conducted to investigate further awareness in the
industry of time management issues. To achieve second and third objective that need the questionnaire survey in order
to investigate how progress records are kept and to identify the process of monitoring the progress of work is done on
construction industry. Generally, the questionnaire designed for this study consists of three parts where each part of
the questions will reflect to the competency that have been stated above, namely Part A – Parties’ Involvement on the
Planning of Constructions Works, Part B - How Progress Records are Kept and Part C - The Process of Monitoring
the Progress of Work. The method of analysis for this study is using SPSS. The benefit of using SPSS is easy to
determine frequency distribution during questionnaire analysis. Frequencies statistic were used to obtain frequencies
of a set of selection. The highest frequency of a selection means it’s a favourite selection by respondents. Furthermore,
according to Morgan et al (2007), frequency analysis is a tally or count of the number of times each score on a single
variable occurs. The frequency result can be chosen either in percentage of respondents (%) or number of respondents.
For better and easy understanding the result data transform into bar charts and pie charts.
 Lok Siew Chin and Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid / Procedia Engineering 125 (2015) 32 – 39 35

4. Results and Discussion

This study was conducted to examine the practice of time management on construction projects. Thus 30
questionnaires sets were distributed to the construction companies where Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru and Sabah
responded. The results from the questionnaires obtained was analyzed and discussed based on the three objectives of
the study.

4.1. Finding 1: To assess the respondents’ participation in the planning of construction works

Objective 1 was to assess the respondents’ participation in the planning of construction works. Choosing the right
project control techniques to suit the process in managing time is important as it will assist in managing the risk of
project delayed. The selection of the proper analysis method depends upon a variety of factors including information
available, time of analysis, capabilities of the methodology, and time, funds and effort allocated to the analysis [21].
Based on the 30 sets of data collected from the surveys, below are the results for this objective. The analysis of
responses in fig. 1 showed that a large proportion, 18.45% of all projects was currently being constructed under
traditional contract. The bar chart was the most favorite tools for time management used by respondents which were
29.33%. About 26.67% of respondents were familiar with flow chart while none of the respondents had used line of
balance in their projects. Minutes of meeting were a popular tool for time management task which has 24% of
respondents using it. Other tools for time management were correspondence (8%) and fully linked network (8%). The
most popular softwares used by respondents to prepare construction schedules were Excel and Microsoft Project which
has 43.55% respectively. Other softwares were less used by respondents such as CA Superproject and Pertmaster.
About 11.29% of respondents have used Primavera and PowerProject (1.61%) in planning their projects.
Table 1 clearly has shown that project manager has the highest percentage in both drafting a planning method
statement and project planning meetings. Based on Nash et al [22], the Project Manager was indicated as having a
consistent high level of power over the three phases which were pre-contract phase, pre-construction phase and
construction phase. Overall, majority of the respondents answered these part of questions had their experience of
sequence was planned as a result of a discussion and written method statement as stated in Fig. 2. In figure 3, most of
them experienced the activity durations being calculated in whole or in part. Also, Figure 4, the majority of
respondents (64.29%) had experienced that the price were allocated in separate documents with contingency while
only 7.14% of respondents had not experience in pricing the values of activities. In identifying logic in construction
schedules (Figure 5), most of them identified the logic by having meetings with construction manager and other
interested parties.
The majority of respondents used date constraints to constraint the performance to dates given in the contract
documents while more than half of the respondents said in their experience these float constraints were used to control
critically. Date constraints are used to override the logic of a schedule (if any) and to force an activity to start by, on
or after a specified date. About 60.53% said that they had experienced date constraints to constraint the performance
to dates given in the contract documents. The effect of using date constraints to constraint the performance dates
would be to hold those milestones to the stated dates on the schedule, irrespective of whether the activity durations,
coupled with the logic of the schedule (if any) would predict that the dates could be met. 26.32% of respondents had
experience that date constraints were to be controlled critically. Only 2.63% of respondents said that it was left entirely
to the project scheduler as to whether and if so, how date constraints were used. Float constraints are used to override
the logic of a schedule (if any) and to force the removal of free or total float from a path where the logic of the schedule
would dictate otherwise. About 17.95% were aware that the use of float constraints was forbidden. Only about 5.13%
said that in their experience it was left to the project scheduler to determine how float constraints were used. 53.85%
of respondents said in their experience these constraints were used to control critically. There were 23.08% of
respondents who were familiar with float constraints being used to identify dependant predecessors.
36 Lok Siew Chin and Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid / Procedia Engineering 125 (2015) 32 – 39

Method Of ontract Procurement

Turnkey 6.80
Traditional contract 18.45
Public-private partnerships (PPP) 2.91
Project management consultant (PMC) 3.88
Private finance initiative (PFI) 0.00
Partnering 7.77
Package deal 4.85
Open tendering 17.48
Lump sum 15.53
Develop and construct 2.91
Design-build- finance-operate (DBFO) 0.00
Design and build 14.56
Build-own-operate (BOO) 1.94
Build-own- operate-transfer (BOOT) 0.00
Build-operate-transfer (BOT) 0.00
Build-lease-transfer (BLT) 2.91
0.00 5.00
Percentage (%)
10.00 15.00 20.00

Fig. 1. The percentage of respondents involving in the method of procurement

Table 1. Parties who are usually involved in drafting a planning method statement and project planning meetings

Parties Drafting a planning method statement (%) Involved in project planning meetings (%)
Architect 6.71 4.68
Client 13.41 9.36
Contract manager 5.49 -
Foreman 0.00 0.00
Mechanical and electrical engineer (M&E) 13.42 7.02
Project manager 14.63 15.20
Quantity surveyor 6.10 5.26
Relevant specialist/subcontractor/supplier 6.71 4.09
Scheduler 7.93 10.53
Site engineer - 11.70
Site Supervisor - 6.43
Site manager 9.15 12.28
Structural engineer 7.32 7.02
Sub-contractors 7.93 6.43
Tradesman 1.22 0.58

When it came to relating the resource used to the work done and in which location, it was the experience of only
34.43% of respondents to this survey that the task description was identified. 26.23% of respondents reported that the
area description was recorded in the same way as that on the construction schedule to which the labour has been
applied. In the experience of 16.39% of the respondents the labour resource records were related to a task description
held in a different document while 14.75% said that a work area description was contained in a different document. In
 Lok Siew Chin and Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid / Procedia Engineering 125 (2015) 32 – 39 37

the experience of 6.56% of respondents the details of the area being worked on were identified in the record while
only 1.64% reported a work area description having no relationship with anything. held in a different document while
14.75% said that a work area description was contained in a different document. In the experience of 6.56% of
respondents

Fig. 2. Establishment of the planned sequence of work. Fig. 3. Method to identify the duration of a planned activity

Fig. 4. The application of costs to planned activities Fig. 5. The application of logic to planned activities.

Around 26.74% reported that the details of the date were kept in plant and machinery records while 20.93% reported
that details of the day of the week to which the record related were recorded. 29.07% reported that details of the name
of the type of plant were kept, with 23.26% reporting that details of the trade to which it related were kept. As for plant
and equipment work data, both of 13.33% of cases were related to a task description and area description on another
document. In 6.67% of responses, the plant and equipment resources were related to a task description. However, only
3.33% respondents to this question had experience of a work description with no relationship to anything.
38 Lok Siew Chin and Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid / Procedia Engineering 125 (2015) 32 – 39

Fig. 6. Type of the progress report kept in the company Fig. 7. Type of delay and compensation event record kept.

4.2. Finding 3: To identify the process of monitoring the progress of work on construction industry

Objective 3 was to identify the process of monitoring the progress of work on construction industry. Al-Jibouri in
[23] has stated that project’s progress is needed to be monitored and compared as the work proceeds in order to identify
and measure these differences. Only 8.16% had experience in the use of earned value as a measure of progress in the
design stage. 20.41% reported that the degree of progress made was estimated by reference to identifiable stages of
design and 51.02% of design work to be done. The majority of respondents (37.50%) did not have experience of the
reporting of the progress of the project as a whole. 41.67% of those indicated that progress was either reported against
the first schedule or the last revised schedule. Only 6.25% were familiar with progress being reported in the period
since the last report. All of the respondents in their experience had updated the schedule. 22.64% had experience of
the schedule being updated at fortnightly intervals. 35.85% of respondents had the experience of updating the
schedules monthly. It was the experience of about 15.09% of respondents that the schedule was updated when
requested by contract administrator while 24.53% when requested by the client. Only 1.89% of respondents had the
experience of updating the schedules when chosen by the contract management team. Also, 72.97% of respondents
experienced the updating of the schedules a straight, date-related status line with the work actually done to the left of
the line and the work to be done to the right of it and the schedule re-sequences. Lastly, the respondents experienced
in dealing the consequences of out of work sequence in the project were by taking priority of logic (40.9%), planned
logic taken in precedence to progress achieved (38.6%) and Logic corrected to conform to progress achieved (20.5%).

5. Conclusions

From the surveys, it is shown that project manager is important in the planning of construction works. Most of the
respondents had their experience of sequence was planned as a result of a discussion and written method statement,
the activity durations being calculated in whole or in part, the price were allocated in separate documents with
contingency, date constraints were used constraint the performance to dates given in the contract documents and float
constraints were used to control critically.
From these findings, most respondents know the importance of progress reports by keeping the records on paper
and were quickly input into database for future purposes. Also, the majority of the respondents were familiar with
labour allocation records being kept when work was carried out. This shows that they are aware of the records being
kept of compensation or delay-related events. It was the experience of majority respondents identified task on schedule
for both labour and plant and equipment records when it came to relating the resource used to the work done and in
which location.
Lastly, most respondent least use earned value as a measure of progress in the design stage. They preferred to report
the progress of the project as whole and updated the schedules monthly. In updating or monitoring schedules, they
updated the schedule by preferring the schedules as a straight, date-related status line with the work actually done to
 Lok Siew Chin and Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid / Procedia Engineering 125 (2015) 32 – 39 39

the left of the line and the work to be done to the right of it and the schedule re-sequences. This would show the effect
upon timing of the remaining planned activities of the progress estimated to have been achieved to date. Most of them
have taken priority over planned logic to deal with the out of sequence works.

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